“Just Jillian” recap (1.1): Married to the Job

It’s no secret that while there are people who love Jillian Michaels, there are also people that don’t love Jillian. She has not always said or done the right thing in terms of her support for the LGBTQ community and that has been a bit off-putting to some queer women in particular, so I honestly was a bit skeptical that Just Jillian would even be worth watching. I would like to say I was somewhat pleasantly surprised.

The show follows Jillian’s hectic life as a mom, partner, business mogul and basically everything we all go through on a daily basis, except with a lot less money and a lot more body fat. It starts off with past clips of Jillian screaming at people on The Biggest Loser to run faster “unless they are dying” and I immediately started crying into my bag of chips. She is scary when she yells, you guys. The clip starts throwing out not so nice words that have been used to describe her: Merciless, bloodthirsty, insensitive, inhumane. Then they cut to Jillian and her partner Heidi sitting side by side, as Heidi begins to share words to describe her that many of us have never heard before, such as “sweet” and “loving” and “sensitive.” Jillian is not thrilled about being called sensitive because apparently she must be tough 24/7.

“Don’t call me sensitive or I will make you do 100 push-ups.”

Jillian and Heidi are not married, despite Heidi’s want to be.

“We have two kids and have to deal with each other until the day we die. It doesn’t get more married than that,” Jillian said.

One thing we learn within just a few short minutes: Jillian typically gets her way. She is very much in control of everyone and everything around her, which her business partner, Giancarlo, says in one of his interviews. Whether it’s her business or her personal life, Jillian is very hands on and ultimately calls the shots.

“Ugh, first Heidi wants to get married and now Giancarlo hates my pet bird.”

Although it seems like she has it all together, Jillian is struggling with feeling like she is failing at being there for her family and that she is possibly having a nervous breakdown. She jokingly tells this to her daughter, who has no idea what she is saying and laughs. I tried so hard to feel some type of empathy towards her feelings of failure, but when she went on to complain about how many houses she has to take care of (three at one point), two little kids to take care of, a partner who is “on her ass to get married” and the fact that she couldn’t stand the thought of spending $41,000.00 on patio furniture but then went ahead and did it anyway, my empathy became non-existent.

“I should bottle these tears and give them away with a purchase of my workout videos.”